


Maiden of the Fields

by orphan_account



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Blood and Gore, F/M, Multi, Other, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-27 23:31:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2710679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because, whatever barren land she tiptoes on is invariably left bursting with life-giving blooms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Maiden's Descent

Long days stretched through the mortal realm, coaxing and mocking at his endless lifespan. Dionysus had at first believed that he would pass from his Earthly tasks relatively quickly. Wine was, after all, nothing but a source of mischief and mistakes. His belief on the frivolous nature of his office was later quelled, when a series of realisations hit him shortly before his first mortal descent to the Underworld — the clarity of which was brought on by a conscious regard of the fact that he would soon have his body torn into pieces. Well, at least he was right in thinking he would die young.

The one consolation was on the grass before him, lying right where his feet would have taken the god had he not caught sight of a tangled knot of flaming curls. The hair grew on a head Dionysus knew well from his long childhood days playing with its owner, who was holding one arm up in the air. Her fingers splayed out and furled back into her palm, skin rich brown as if Helios made the child his during her day-long romps with her nymphs. It wasn’t that, of course; the Maiden was born of the golden earth and the fiery sky, and her colour was a gift as natural as her dainty ankles flitting about the flowers which tended to spring up from her touch as she played in dewy fields.

Dionysus crouched down until he could feel her warmth on his nose without actually touching her, and relished the sensation of living while it lasted. “Dion,” she breathed, eyes fluttering open, lips breaking apart into a gentle smile. “Is it that time again?”

“Kore,” he retorted, sniggering as the girl wrinkled her nose in disgust. She’d been determinedly trying to get everyone not her mother to stop referring to her as the Maiden. Eons ago, Demeter let slip that she would do anything in her power to keep her daughter pure. The mere pronouncement was enough to send Persephone into a panic. The Maiden made beautiful things grow in earth; if she had to, she would give her maidenhead away to do the same from within her own body.

“It’s not so bad there,” Dionysus mused as he settled down beside her, close enough to feel the other but not enough to touch. “It’s cool, so nobody sweats like here. There are never any blinding lights. The Lampades are exquisite, though pale…”

“But how do you even do anything?” Her voice was that kind of whisper which signified that no loud words were needed, because they were close enough to each other to hear everything they needed to hear. Above them, the overcast sky began to clear and patches of bright blue let off heat from the noonday sun. “You just get torn up like meat, you said.”

“You wouldn’t get torn up. If you joined me, I mean.”

When Kore turned to glare sharply at him then, the god knew that something changed. It was in the glint in her eyes, the self-assured twist of her head, the flowery fragrance coating her fingers and wafting softly out of her mouth. He’d knew that scent, kissed it once and never went back for a second taste. Yet here was Kore, who seemed to have had gone far with the nymph.

“Really? Chloris?”

“Don’t change the subject,” Kore eyed him suspiciously. The Maiden’s newfound ferociousness was stirring up his blood in that one place Demeter would willingly tear off with her bare hands. “Why would you want me in Hades? If mother finds out whatever the Unseen One has planned for me—”

“You don’t know him yet,” Dionysus interrupted impatiently. “He might be the nicest man you’ll ever know. He might make you laugh more than anybody else will. Maybe he’ll tug at that nest on your head and fix it. Or shoo satyrs away while you play with the nymphs.”

“That’s all you, though,” she giggled. And, maybe she pitied him because he looked so embarrassed. Perhaps his blush was affecting her more than it should have had. Maybe it was guilt at her anger. Or, really, something else entirely new, unspoken, untested. She could not bring herself to resist, so she did. Her lips touched his in a quick peck, but it seemed that whatever made her do what she did also did unspoken things to him. As she pulled back, a hand gripped her nape, caressing her with a gently persuasive touch, telling her silently to go back to him and deepen the kiss. Kore was all too happy to comply.

Her mother spent so much effort and eons in keeping Kore from this strangely exquisite joy; she would not have known it, had she not had her mother’s nymphs teaching her and allowing themselves to be touched where Kore was forbidden. Maiden, she was; but, she had an inkling of how far one could possibly go with even just the stroke of a hand or the touch of lips to desire. She wanted to know exactly how far she could go, and she would have, had the boy continued and not pulled back as he did.

“Your nymphs will be disappointed in you,” he chuckled, playfully poking a finger just below her stomach and sending hot waves of wanting towards her core.

“Have you ever known me to care?”

She dove back into him, desirous for more, demanding of everything he could give on this green but desolate plain of Nysa. His tongue hesitantly pushed into open mouth, and then he could not stop. Soon, they were a tangle of limbs, of discarded peplos, himation and chiton binding their bodies tightly together, moaning and mumbling incoherently; her hand was wrapped around his erection, his mouth suckling her soft breasts. They might have hesitated, just once; but, Persephone ground her hips against his and he allowed himself to fall just enough to taste her, lick her, drink in every bit he’d stopped himself from thinking of eons and eons ago, finally knowing that what he wanted was everything and that he wanted more. Dionysus felt himself pulled back up by gentle hands, hands that roved down to the silken hardness at his loins, cupping his testicles with a gentle squeeze before leading him to her moist entrance as Kore’s mouth teased his.

He held back, knowing that, despite all her lures and wiles and tricks from the nymphs, this was something completely foreign to her. That she was, truly still, the Maiden. Gently, he moved forward, feeling her tender flesh squeeze against the head of his penis. Persephone nudged against him in welcome, even as she moaned at the sharp sting of the intrusion. Dionysus groaned, and gave her more, little by little until his entire length was sheathed in Kore.  _No, no longer Kore — Persephone, now, always Persephone._

With that thought, Dionysus propped himself up on one elbow and moved with long, languid strokes. He lost himself in her, somewhere between a moan and a whimper. Persephone rocked with him, matching his every action; they had not noticed the now-cloudless sky, Helios burning his gaze on the two young lovers. Their pace quickened, and her nails dug into his back. Just then, he brought forth the question he’d avoided asking.

“Will you come with me? Not just here? Everywhere. Down there.”

Only knowing her ecstasy of the moment, Persephone clutched at her lover and at the ground, trying to hold on to the climax that beat throughout her entire body. Only a lone narcissus flower grew from amongst the wild weeds and it was this she grabbed as she cried — screamed — that  _yes_ , she would follow him henceforth. The ground shook beneath them as Dionysus spilled himself out into her. The earth cracked and parted, Persephone and Dionysus falling, falling into the abyss before a great black chariot led by four fearsome horses appeared out of nowhere and caught them. Steadying herself, Persephone began to approach Dionysus before shrinking back when his pruning began.

 

His limbs went first: fingers ripped out of the hands, bare palms stripped away from the wrists; elbows, the rest of his arms, toes and feet and legs were all hacked away by an unseen force. Persephone backed away, afraid for Dionysus but unable to create anything to fix or soothe him. Ichor spurted and flowed, but his sated smile remained throughout the ordeal. The rest of his body followed, then the head was rolling off to one side of the chariot; soon, the flesh of his back was parting from his bones and his frame was falling away. His insides began to drop as well, crawling slimily towards the god’s head, but his heart remained. Persephone froze as new body parts began to grow around the steadily pumping organ. In place of the olive-skinned youth she had made love with, an older man was formed. Towering over her, his body stood starkly pale against the fading high noon light; it was the very opposite of the darkness that was his hair, almost exhausting to look at for it felt as if her soul was being pulled into an empty void within. This was not Dionysus. Not her Dion at all. Yet, he was the greater being. Persephone knew only of two other gods as imposing and exuding as much power as this one. She had ridden down into their brother’s lair.

 

 

The Unseen One. The Giver of Wealth. The Receiver of Many. Hades.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [TL;DR](http://iris-lang.tumblr.com/post/104309853439/)


	2. Mistress of the Fields

_She that had no need of me,_  
 _Is a little lonely child_  
-           _Edna St. Vincent Millay_

* * *

 

 

Only the gods had destinies.

Mortals believed in the Moirai: three crones who spun, wove and cut threads of stories people lived by — a sort of cosmological ordinance that no dying being could escape. It was a fanciful idea, but untrue nonetheless. This was why the humans carved out lines on their skin: a gift that made them more powerful than the deities, though none would ever know. In exchange for their short, inconsequential years, they had the freedom to choose their own paths. These paths marked their bodies as they aged.

Gods did not wrinkle. Gods had flat palms with no marks. They could not choose.

They had the Ananke, the dreaded ridge that they had to flow through for all eternity. It was part of their perfection, they understood. From the first power-cravings of Kronos to the many dalliances Zeus had under his wife’s nose, the Undying Ones were prey to the designs of an unseen force of destiny. The worst part was that there were no ancient crones to visit, no special tapestries to check, and no true oracles to suggest even just a minuscule idea of what would come out of their preordained actions.

Thus, Demeter did not understand why a new god appeared amongst the fruit trees near her fields. This happened in eons past, after one of Zeus’ absences. He was away for a few months after one of his lovers died, and returned with a full-grown son who helped steady his stilted gait. This son, she did not understand, but accepted. It was their way of being.

Just now, however, Demeter could not find it in herself to accept the absence in Nysa, and the story Helios rushed to tell her as he left the hemisphere.

“She was dragged down that chariot _screaming_ , my Lady.”

The god’s aureole blinded her in the darkened twilight and Demeter struggled to keep her eyes open as she dismissed him, “Kore belongs to my side of the Earth. He has carried away all mortals to his realm, but my child will find no place for herself in his oblivion.”

Her trembling words chilled at the Sun god, prompting him to leave and continue his journey through the rest of the world. Behind the goddess, bushes shivered and blades of grass unfolded from their footprint-shaped indents where nymphs ran hiding from the Mother. Finding herself deserted, Demeter furiously turned to the sky and demanded, “Why?”

She spoke in no more than a broken whisper, but Zeus had been watching the exchange and answered immediately in a rumble of thunder, lightning bolts signalling his presence in a gathering of dark clouds.

“I have no power over Fate.”

“So you say,” Demeter countered, biting back a disbelieving laugh as her tears flowed unchecked, her voice hoarse. “But, were you not made the ruler of all gods so many eons ago?”

“We are immortals. You know, perhaps even better than I do, that this is the unwilling sacrifice we were born into for the honour of ruling our realms.”

“We have choices, Horkios! Do you choose,” she pronounced weightily. “Do you choose to give over a daughter in need of your protection?”

Demeter lowered her head, wrapping her himation over her head and around her face, shielding her expression from the tempestuous display before her. She turned away, as if making to leave, before looking back to say, “Perhaps, my lord, you think of her as a lesser being? She does not, after all, have a realm to call her own.”

“My unsworn protection extends to all my children within my realm, Demeter.” As if to emphasise the god’s words, a stray bolt of lightning struck a tree standing alone amongst shrubs. “Persephone is beyond my dominion, as such.”

The air settled and light steadied back onto the field as Zeus’ storm ended abruptly; only the remains of a shattered tree stood to mark the Thunder-god’s presence. Furious, Demeter tore away her head cover and openly faced the sky, screaming, “Coward! Do your fears of the Netherworld still haunt you? Hades is _dead_. Are you so afraid of death that you will let one of your immortal children succumb to it without your intervention?”

Demeter cried freely, falling to the ground as her knees gave up its strength to despair.

 

\- - - - - - -

 

“Arion.”

In a forest near Etna, a cool breeze murmured as frost slowly made its way through trees that were marked with the beginnings of Demeter's neglect.

“Arion, child. I need you.”

The breeze wavered, as if hesitating, then turned back to circle the old woman whispering to it.

“Arion, my love. I know you're here.”

The wind picked up speed, whirling faster than a tornado, nested in its eye the goddess in peasant's skin. Swiftly, it went, until no mortal could have withstood its rush. Then, a magnificent stallion appeared, galloping high in the air and heading to the ground. As the steed touched dirt, its front hooves began to turn into fingers. Soon, the change extended to show arms, long and muscular; then, the animal's black mane rose to crown a handsome woman's head. The rest of her body followed, crouched down and sheathed only in skin that matched her animal form's rich, brown coat.

Arion rose, not bothering to clothe herself, and tilted her proud head forward in deference, “My lady, Mother. To what do I owe the honour of this visit?”

“Arion,” Demeter acknowledged. “I wish for you to come and live with me.”

The younger woman fell back a step, perplexed at the elder’s request, and could only say, “But... Why?”

“Are you not afraid of the more powerful gods who can so easily snatch you up from anywhere they choose to take you?”

Demeter approached a lone pine guarding their clearing mostly surrounded by beeches and birch wood, and touched the bark as she regarded her second daughter.

Suspicious, Arion narrowed her eyes and questioned, “What brought you this sudden interest in my welfare, Mother?”

Demeter averted her gaze and replied woodenly, “I cannot have you taken away by some rogue god who thinks too greatly of himself.”

“Yes, Mother,” Arion threw her head back in a boisterous laugh. “A male horse who becomes a human female has been known to fire up the loins of many!”

“You ridicule me, child,” Demeter smiled wryly. “But, I will not have you taken from me as Kore has been.”

At this revelation, Arion was once again stunned, saying, “Persephone? What happened?”

“You have been too free for far too long, child,” Demeter said, her voice breaking. “Olympus has been turning their ceaseless tongues toward your sister. Kore has been taken by the Unseen One.”

“Really, now?” Arion studied her mother with curiosity, marvelling at the tears flowing down Demeter’s face at the mention of Persephone. Cautiously, she remarked, “That wouldn't make her _Kore_ , now. Would it?”

“It is the name I have for her,” Demeter’s eyes flashed. “Kore is who she shall always be to me! Though, of course, she _has_ taken a perverse pleasure in taking her father's name for her.”

“It isn't too perverse,” Arion noted. “Zeus Olympios said that the name was destined for greatness.”

Demeter held back a gasp, and turned away dismissively, “Do not speak his name. Come.”

“Where are we going?” Arion sighed as she watched her mother’s shrouded figure cut a direct path from the woods to what looked like a field of grains.

From the other end of the portal, Demeter motioned for her daughter to follow and said, “This. This is where we can build our own world as I protect you.”

“We? What would I do here? Do you expect me to sit in a temple and bestow gifts upon supplicants? Perhaps sedately trod on land?”

Arion laughed wonderingly, recognising Eleusis as her bare feet landed at Demeter’s side. “My power does not work that way, Mother. I am not your fertile Kore.”

“You are not. You are someone else entirely,” Demeter said as she appraised her daughter’s nakedness with disapproval.

“Your other form will be only known to the two of us. As I am Demeter, this form of yours shall be known as Despoina.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epigraph from _Prayer to Persephone_.
> 
> Zeus Horkios: Zeus, keeper of oaths


End file.
